I Do Everything I'm Told

by Megan Fernandes

A TIME Best Book of 2023


 “Moving. . . .irresistible. . . .Transforms verse into multiverse.”—The New Yorker


Restless, contradictory, and witty, Megan Fernandes’ I Do Everything I’m Told explores disobedience and worship, longing and possessiveness, and nights of wandering cities. Its poems span thousands of miles, as a masterful crown of sonnets starts in Shanghai, then moves through Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Lisbon, Palermo, Paris, and Philadelphia—with a speaker who travels solo, adventures with strangers, struggles with the parameters of sexuality, and speculates on desire.



Across four sections, poems navigate the terrain of queer, normative, and ambiguous intimacies with a frank “It’s better to be illegible, sometimes. Then they can’t govern you.” Strangers, ancestors, priests, ghosts, the inner child, sisters, misfit raccoons, Rimbaud, and Rilke populate the pages. Beloveds are unnamed, and unrealized desires are grieved as actual losses. The poems are grounded in real cities, but also in a surrealist past or an impossible future, in cliché love stories made weird, in ordinary routines made divine, and in the cosmos itself, sitting on Saturn’s rings looking back at Earth. When things go wrong, Fernandes treats loss with a sacred “Contradictions are a sign we are from god. We fall. We don’t always get to ask why.”

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT, Contemporary, Nonfiction, Literary Fiction, 21st Century

95 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 20, 2023

Reviews

[Mallory · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s been a while I since I read a good book of poetry, and this one reminded me that I missed that. I loved the variety in format and the way that sometimes even the same phrases or lines were played win in multiple formats and poems. I liked that many of the poems were tied to cities and the various poems did have voices that matched their cities. I liked that there was so much more than I got from each poem and I know others will take something different than me. This is a super quick read, but it is definitely a book worth picking up. Several of the poems have stuck with me long since I set the book down. I think my favorite was “Do You Sell Dignity Here?” Overall I gave this 4.5 stars rounded up for the cleverness in the language.

[April Lundquist · Rating 5 out of 5]

Catastrophically good.

[Jillian B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really beautiful poetry with a wandering, nomadic feel. The part that really shone for me was the brilliant collection of sonnets in the middle of the book, each dedicated to a beloved one in a different city, and then deftly combined. I think these poems will particularly resonate with women in their twenties and thirties who are charting their own path.

[Cass · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brilliant poetry collection. However, it is not a poetry collection written for me. It is too intelligent for me, and recounts lots experiences that I do not understand. But, that doesn’t make it bad. I could tell just from reading it how much work went into it and how much it is going to mean to someone, even if that someone isn’t me. A fatal flaw many of us have is that we are narcissists. Not every book is written for our enjoyment yet we fault the book for not meeting our expectations. I am trying to shy away from that with this book because as I said, this is one of the most remarkable and well-written modern poetry collections I have ever read.

[Ada · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bellíssim...i divertit!

[sacredheart · Rating 3 out of 5]

yes. it was joy, wasn’t it? even if it was ugly, it was joy.

[Novi · Rating 5 out of 5]

i haven't blown through a book in a while but here i am reading to procrastinate. i just laid on a bench outside and read straight through this collection. the structure of section 2 is GENIUS. it is a collection of sonnets and the last line begins the first line of the next one. i have never felt a section of poems flow so seamlessly into one another. I will continue to think about this relationship between blame and loving someone that was drawn several times in a couple of poems as well as when/what/why we break rules and who do we break rules for. most definitely will read again.

favorite poems:
- space cowboi
- the trial
- do you sell dignity here?
- i'm smarter than this feeling, but am i?

[Caitlin Conlon · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up. This was one of the best poetry collections I’ve read in a while. The very faint narrative that runs through these poems is done incredibly well. The language was stunning—memorable & sad & funny & beautiful. Each poem was electric in its own right, & I did a lot of underlining as I read. I can already tell these are poems I’ll be returning to.

[emma]

“A poet does not have enough mercy / for all the people who really need it. / I love the word triage because of tri- / Triangles. Tridents. I fall hard in pairs. / I cast beloveds. I kill them off, too.”

[blake · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just didn’t connect with this book. It felt progressively like a travel diary and despite the lyrical beauty, I was itching for it to end.

———————————————————————————

“It’s better to be illegible, sometimes. Then they can’t govern you. It takes time to build an ethics. Go slow. Wellness is a myth and shame transforms no one. You can walk off most anything.”

“In the end, your role is to attend to the things you like and ask for more of it: Bridges. Ideas. Destabilization. Yellow tansy. Cities. The wild sea. And in the absence of recovery, some ritual. In the absence of love? Ritual. Understand that ritual is a kind of patience, an awaiting and waiting. Keep waiting, kitten. You will be surprised what you can come back from.”

“The cruelest person we love is the first.”

“Children have no dignity and I really admire that about them. I love their ruthless response to injustices, their desire to feed birds in the park. To grieve the sea. Their right to be tired in public.”

[naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

for the girlies who have ever fallen in love in a city. or with a city. or both.

[Molly Venus · Rating 5 out of 5]

gagged.

[emma charlton · Rating 3 out of 5]

3. 5 / This poetry collection started and ended really strong! I found myself highlighting and bookmarking in the first and last 15-20%, but the rest I didn't connect with for some reason. I found some lines too cliche or abstract, and others just so grounded in reality with no reflection. My favorites were the end of "Do You Sell Dignity Here," and "In Death, We Met in Scotland." I would still recommend to people looking to branch out in poetry, and I would read more by Fernandes! Thanks to NetGalley for the arc!

[lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

"you want what o'hara wanted, i think, which is a kind of boundlessness / that won't kill anyone. edging. you don't believe in bodies."
funny and wrenching, light and direct, dense with meaning and reference; especially enamored with the playful form of the sonnets

[silas denver melvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

brilliant, of course of course

[Reese · Rating 4 out of 5]

guys i actually finished a book of poems… and i liked them even… 🤯

[Kayla Simon]

“wandering sonnet” is one of my favorite poems i’ve ever read

[natàlia · Rating 4 out of 5]

there were some BRILLIANT moments. i enjoyed the sonnets a lot even though the middle part of the book was the weakest. the poem “retrospection” has my heart forever, it filled me with a very special, very tender light. will definitely be reading more from this author.

[Sam Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this book of poetry was beautiful, and I'm so happy to have been blessed enough to receive both a physical copy of the book and an e-book option from Tin House Books, Netgalley, and Megan Fernandes. I Do Everything I'm Told is set to hit shelves on June 20, 2023, and I'm so excited for more of my poetry-loving friends to get the chance to experience the profound beauty that this book of poems and prose conveys.

[Joey Joseph · Rating 2 out of 5]

Megan Fernandes clearly has potential (Tired of Love Poems, Sagittarius) — which is why I will not say she is a bad writer or call this a bad book. I think she will very likely write something pretty incredible when she decides to stop trying.

These poems didn’t resonate with me, but it doesn’t feel like they were ever meant to. This reads like someone talking to herself in the mirror or to the personal, imagined version of the people she knows. It doesn’t appear to be written for any audience based in reality.

I do, however, want to hear more from her based on soul-stitching lines like this: “Yes. It was joy, wasn’t it? Even if it was ugly, it was joy.”

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pivoted to poetry to help get me out of my reading slump. I was floored by this collection, I am not sure how many times I read the poem “Drive” but I did show it to everyone I could since our first meeting.

Fernandes is a talent, I ended so many of those poems going “wow” to myself. Prose poetry, blackout poetry, sonnets, everything - they expanded and challenged so many different formats throughout this collection. Each section in particular had such a specific theme, style, and color palette.

One of the most talented poets I’ve read in years. I will carry these words with me for a long time.

[Skylar Miklus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread update: yep still perfect! That crown of sonnets, just wow.

Original review: Megan Fernandes has a unique, modern, humorous voice that ties these poems together. She's clearly an expert at wordplay and often combines words into bizarre, unexpected phrases that have probably never been seen in the English language before. Queer desire, fate, and longing are themes running throughout. My favorite poems are probably "Shanghai Sonnet" or "Pound and Brodsky in Venice." Available everywhere June 20; thanks Tin House for the ARC!

[deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely adored these poems!! Fernandes has a way of so precisely capturing a moment or emotion with this kind of graphic honesty that is tender when it needs to be and unflinchingly bold at the same time. I can’t wait to read more of her work!!

“In the end, your role is to attend to the things you like and ask for more of it: Bridges. Ideas. Destabilization. Yellow tansy. Cities. The wild sea. And in the absence of recovery, some ritual. In the absence of love? Ritual. Understand that ritual is a kind of patience, an awaiting and waiting.”
-from “Letter to a Young Poet”

[nayezi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fernandes indeed knows the poetic craftsmanship and I could see her using it in the book.

But personally I’ve to say, that nothing resonated or at least touched me. It felt like the author sometimes got lost between her metaphors and forgot about the original message. Moreover I found her sometimes mundane sentences quite irritating and exaggerated (E.g. „I piss on a rock“).

[miriam s. · Rating 2 out of 5]

repetitive and largely forgettable. Missed reading poetry and this was so highly rated I was hopeful. this was definitely not what I was missing. Screams millennial ... no offence

[Addie Dobry · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can’t tell if this book is unbearably pretentious or I am simply not the audience it was written for.

[Courtney Bernard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read More Reviews Here

Separated into four sections this collection of poems navigates the terrain of queer, normative, and ambiguous intimacies with intelligence and care. Each section focuses either on a theme or type of poem and this is done beautifully. Megan speaks about love, cities, transformations in life and how we react to what's going on in the world and our lives.

The poems are grounded in real cities, a lovely collection of inspiring and vivid poems. I enjoyed how the sonnets each focused on a specific city and evoked the feeling you get with travel and what Megan was feeling/experiencing at that specific moment. She transported you into her life and experience in such a unique way.

Poems I connected with:
Paris Poem without Cliches
Shanghai Sonnet
Rilke
Sonnet for the Unbearable
There is such passion in a short collection, the poems I connected with I really connected with while the others I could take or leave. I know they all worked together to tell the story of the author's life, prose has such a variety that there will be some that will heavily connect and others not so much.

Final Thoughts: If you are just getting into poetry I would not recommend this as a first collection, the poems are great just more difficult for a beginner. Overall, a wonderful collection just more intense topics and techniques in this collection than others.

Disclaimer: Thank you Netgalley and Tin House Books for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a lovely poetry collection to read. I think what made me enjoy and connect with these poems as much as I did was because of my familiarity with many of the cities Fernandes wanders through in her poems. As adventurous as her poems sound due to their globetrotting nature, I found that most of these poems highlighted the more mundane moments of everyday life, regardless of location. In addition to wandering across different spaces, Fernandes wanders across time in her musings that I found evocative.

There is a playful element to many of these poems in their tone and form that I appreciated. Furthermore, these poems are introspective in nature considering the simpler aspects of life, yes, but also the complex (particularly when it comes to love), with Fernandes taking in these moments at her own pace.

I admit that I would hesitate to recommend this collection to readers who are only starting to get their footing in poetry. It’s not because the poems are difficult to understand, rather, I think this collection would be harder to appreciate due to the way Fernandes approached many of her poems. Some of them are a bit erudite in that she will be in dialogue with other poets and their works (e.g., Rilke).

I really enjoyed this collection though, and I’ll certainly be looking into more of her works.

Some favorites: “Love Poem,” “Letter to a Young Poet,” “Shanghai,” all of Part II, “Do You Sell Dignity Here?,” “Fuckboy Villanelle,” “Get Your Shit Together and Come Home,” “Phoenix,” “May to December,” “Company, Company,” and “Tired of Love Poems”

[Beth Mowbray]

I don’t read a lot of poetry. I don’t think I’m smart enough to understand a lot of it. And I’m so compulsive that I struggle to let go and feel the work rather than trying to decipher each word and phrase.

Described as poems that “navigate the terrain of queer, normative, and ambiguous intimacies with a frank intelligence,” I was intrigued by what this collection might hold. But it was the claim to explore “disobedience and worship, longing and possessiveness” that sold me. These were feelings and experiences I believed I could relate to, and I did.

Across four sections, Fernandes hooked me. She allowed me to relax into her work, connect with her words, and find shared emotion. A few of my favorites …
✨”How to Have Sex in Your Thirties (or Forties)” - holy shit, this evoked so many of my feelings about being this age in just two pages
✨”Reunion” - greatly because the reunion takes place in Venice, the most beautiful place I’ve ever been, and it just feels so damn real
✨The entire second section, a series of sonnets spanning cities across the globe - the way they are strung together by morphing the final words of one poem to create the first line of the next made it impossible to stop reading

Highly recommend, even if you aren’t a huge poetry reader, and particularly if you are a woman seeking reflections on life and love.💖

Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with an advance copy. All thoughts and opinions are entirely my own.

[janeee :D · Rating 3 out of 5]

very impressive and manages to be decisively inimitable . the continuity between the poems is specifically commendable . the first two parts triumph the latter two in impact , but overall everything i’m told is a solid, cohesive collection that i don’t think ill be able to shake-off for a while :)) 3.5 !!! faves were (in no particular order):

- tired of love poems
- dinner with jack
- orlando
- the trial
- palermo sonnet (blackout ver.)
- wandering sonnet
- do you sell dignity here?